


To the Depth and Breadth and Height

by LayALioness



Series: Find Your Dream [4]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Wedding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-12
Updated: 2016-04-12
Packaged: 2018-06-01 19:25:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6533353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LayALioness/pseuds/LayALioness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bellamy has the perfect ring for Clarke--now if only he had the nerve to actually propose to her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To the Depth and Breadth and Height

**Author's Note:**

  * For [enoughtotemptme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/enoughtotemptme/gifts).



> this is for the lovely julia, and it's exactly one hour and six minutes late i am so sorry but!!! mermaid!bellamy, so!! hopefully you forgive me.
> 
> happy birthday <3

Bellamy knows she’ll say yes— _of course_ she’ll say yes—but it still takes him three months to work up the nerve.

Well, three months after he gets the ring.

It’s mother-of-pearl, like the kind his mother wore before she died, although this isn’t the same as that one. The band is a thin strip of gold, for one, and he has to be careful when he touches it. It doesn’t burn, the way it would if he was still—if he was how he used to be. But it stings a little, wherever it touches his skin.

It’s hard, not knowing what to call himself these days. He knows he’s _technically_ still a mermaid, will always be a mermaid, but. It’s not really the same, without the gills and tail to prove it.

Octavia doesn’t seem to miss the water at all these days, not like he does. She’s content to simply float on her back at the county pool, but Bellamy hates the smell of the chlorine, and he craves the ocean’s salt. She’s becoming more and more like a human, discovering something new to fawn over each day, and Bellamy knows he should be happy for her, knows that she never really felt like she belonged under the sea, but. It still hurts, just a little, watching her grow further away. He’s worried one day he won’t be able to reach her.

Clarke tells him he’s overreacting, but she’s never had a sibling, so she doesn’t really understand.

Octavia’s the one who tells him about the ring in the first place.

He walks into Lincoln’s house sometime in the early afternoon, after a morning shift at the library. Clarke’s still in class—she’s been taking a few courses at the local community college, both to appease her parents and to buy her time to figure out what it is she wants to do with her life. Bellamy doesn’t much see the point in it; mermaids are homeschooled, and generally stop their classical educations around age fourteen. He still loves reading and learning about anything, really, but he can do that for free.

Octavia’s draped herself out over Lincoln’s couch, and is flicking through the television channels while she paints her toenails a deep blue, wiggling them at him periodically.

“I found you a present,” Octavia says without looking up, and Bellamy frowns, wondering if he’d managed to read the calendar wrong again. Human timekeeping is confusing.

“For what?”

Octavia shrugs the shoulder that isn’t being used. “Do I need a reason? Besides, it’s more like a present for Clarke, from you, from me. Get it?”

Bellamy’s frown deepens. His sister is hardly ever this cryptic. It can’t mean anything good. “No.”

Octavia sighs hugely, sounding incredibly put upon, and waves her free hand over vaguely towards the east. “Get me my phone.”

Bellamy glances around, searching for the little rectangle she carries everywhere with her. It helps her speak to people over long distances, he knows, but he still doesn’t trust it. There are too many lights and shrill noises involved.

He finds it on top of one of the book shelves that doesn’t hold any books, instead housing Lincoln’s collection of ceramic Precious Moments figurines. Bellamy’s pretty sure they came with the house and Lincoln just didn’t feel like getting rid of them. He tries not to look at them too often; their huge eyes freak him out.

Bellamy passes Octavia’s phone over, and she takes it without looking, only to let out a noise of disdain when she has it in hand. She waves it at him, accusingly. “Bell, this isn’t my phone, it’s my tablet.”

Bellamy gives her his most unimpressed scowl. “I can’t be expected to keep track of all your loud rectangles, Octavia. It’s hard enough keeping up with the language, let alone those odd symbols you insist on communicating with.”

Octavia blows a raspberry at him. “They’re called _emoji’s_ , nerd. Look, just,” she huffs and then stands up gingerly, walking across the floor on the heels of her feet so she doesn’t smudge her nail polish. She fetches a smaller rectangle from the top of the easy chair, which—Bellamy isn’t really sure why she expected him to look there.

She does something on the screen, and then turns it around to show him. It’s a picture, clearly taken at the thrift store downtown where she works part-time, and Bellamy has to glance over all the random clutter in the frame, before his eyes land on the ring in the center.

It’s a little blurry, because Octavia’s never really gotten the hang in focusing the lens, but he can make out enough to know that it’s beautiful, and a lot like their mom’s, which affects him a lot more than he’s expecting. It’s just—he hadn’t thought she remembered stuff like that. She’d been so young when their mom died, and he hadn’t had time to worry about things like family heirlooms, before grabbing Octavia and swimming as fast as he could away from the whaling ship.

He can see enough to know that the ring would be perfect for Clarke.

But he clears his throat, feigns ignorance, just like his sister probably knew he would. He’s really nothing if not predictable. “Did you and Lincoln have some news for me, or something?”

Octavia in turn rolls her eyes, like _he_ knew _she_ would. “No, you dork. You’re giving it to Clarke. I already put it on hold for you. Plus, I have an employee’s discount, so. It’s paid for and everything. If you want it, it’s yours—well, and Clarke’s, I guess. Mostly Clarke’s.”

Bellamy nods, because he can’t say much else, and because he knows that if he says what he really wants to say, she’ll just make fun of him.

He does still swing an arm around her shoulders and tug her in, even as she protests. “Bell, my _toes_!” she says, voice muffled by his shirt, but Bellamy just ignores her, pressing a kiss to the knot of hair tangled up in a band on top of her head.

“Thanks, O.”

He feels her nod against his chest before pulling back, making a face up at him. “You know this means I’m not getting you a wedding present, right?”

Bellamy grins and lets her go. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

 

Bellamy _knows_ Clarke will say yes, he does, but—first, he’s not sure when the right time is.

Should he wait until she graduates from school, first? That’ll be at least two more years, he knows, and then what if she wants to go to the after-school that some people go to, when they’re _really_ not sure what they want to do in life. Or maybe they just want to keep learning, he’s not really sure.

Should he ask her now, and _then_ wait two years? Or should they get married right away, just to get it over with?

Growing up, Bellamy never actually thought he’d ever get married—not like humans do, anyway. It’s a little bit different, underwater. It’s more like a business arrangement than anything; if a mermaid is alone, it makes sense to form a partnership. There’s safety in pairs.

He knows the only reason his mom never did was because of the ring that she got from Octavia’s father, before he died. He’d sometimes catch her playing with it when she thought he was asleep. She’d watch it catch the light underwater, and he’d watch her, and he’d try to remember the blurry face that he’d only seen once or twice, the one that brought him his sister. If nothing else, he’d always love Octavia’s dad for that.

Bellamy takes to carrying the ring around with him, just in case. He’ll slip his hand into his pocket while he’s walking, and run his hands over the smooth gold band, the mother of pearl, the gemstone—not diamond, but something clear and beautiful just the same. He’ll take it out when Clarke isn’t looking, sometimes at his lunch break at work, just to stare. Imagine what it’ll feel like, slipping it onto her finger. How widely she’ll smile, she may even cry.

In the end, it’s Raven who outs him, which is probably for the best. He may not have ever gotten around to it, otherwise. It was just too easy to convince himself that it wasn’t the right time.

They’re in the ocean, because when Raven first brought up the idea of water aerobics, he’d flatly _refused_ to do anything in the chemical-infested pool they all seem to like so much. Humans—and even his sister these days—have no taste.

Bellamy knows better than to take the ring into the water with him, so he’d taken to leaving it on the sand with the rest of their dry clothes and beach towels, while helping Raven stretch out her bad leg in the water. She was in a nasty car accident earlier in the year, and had really only taken up water aerobics in the first place because her doctor said she’d never be able to walk again, and then she’d read some article on google that said water helped people regain muscle control. Raven does most of what she does these days to prove her doctors wrong.

After an hour and a half, they call it quits, and Bellamy helps Raven out of the water and across the sand towards their pile of cotton and tote bags. He’s drying off his hair, so it won’t soak through his work shirt, when he hears Raven rustling through the pile and then go still. When he looks, he sees she’s got the ring in her hand, and is staring at it with a pretty satisfying amount of surprise. So at least he wasn’t being _too_ obvious.

But then she says “You _idiot_ ,” and Bellamy’s grin falters.

“What?” he asks, concerned, squinting at the ring in confusion. Was he completely wrong? Would Clarke not like the ring? Did she even want to get _married_? Did she not want to get married to _him_? “Did you, did she—is it—”

“Oh, for crying out loud,” Raven reaches over to flick him in the forehead and effectively shut him up. “Get it together, Blake. What’s taking you so long? How long have you even _had_ this? You’re _carrying it around_?”

Bellamy doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t really have to. He can feel himself flushing, and he could _probably_ blame it on the heat, but. Raven knows better, he’s sure. She looks very unimpressed with him.

“So,” he starts, just to be clear, “You think I should ask her soon?”

“I think you should ask her right _now_ ,” Raven says, exasperated. “She’s been waiting for _three years_! She thought you’d ask her after high school graduation.”

Bellamy frowns. That was nearly two years ago. “I thought she would want to wait. Humans do not typically marry so young.”

Raven reaches up to flick him again, but softer this time, affectionate even. “You can be such a mermaid about things sometimes,” she scoffs. “Ask her whenever you want, she’ll definitely say yes. But for what it’s worth, I think you should ask sooner than later. The early bird catches the worm, and all that.”

Bellamy frowns. “Did you just compare Clarke to a worm?”

“Yeah, but you’re the bird that’s eating her,” Raven shrugs. “I didn’t come up with the shitty metaphor. Point is, get to it.” She gives him one last glare, for emphasis, but the overall effect is pretty much lost since he has to half-carry her across the dunes, back to the parking lot.

Bellamy has a whole plan, he really does—it involves a fancy, home cooked meal he got from Lincoln’s worn-in recipe book, and candles that smell like lemon meringue pie, and he even changes into a button-down shirt when he gets home from the library.

But he’s only halfway through the pasta sauce when Clarke shows up, looking grumpy and rumpled, with her hair in tangled curls and thrown up into a haphazard braid, loose strands sticking to the sweaty skin of her jaw and neck. She launches right into a rant about her classes, leaning her hip against the countertop next to him, sneaking baby carrots out of the salad bowl like he can’t see her, and just generally being Clarke Griffin, the girl he’s in love with. The one he wants to spend the rest of his life with, and suddenly he understands Raven’s reaction because honestly, how could he want to _wait_?

“Marry me,” he says, cutting her off in the middle of a sentence he isn’t listening to, which he’ll feel bad about later.

Clarke blinks up at him, looking thrown but not too horrified, which seems like a pretty good sign. Finally, she licks her lips and says “What, right now? In the kitchen? Can we call a judge first?”

Bellamy feels himself start to grin without really meaning to, and he can see her cheeks are turning pink and blotchy, like they do whenever she’s happy. “Is that your only contingency?”

Clarke tips her head, pretending to think for a moment. “I’d like to call my mom and dad,” she decides. “So they can walk me down the aisle. And Raven, because she’d kill me otherwise. We should probably invite Octavia and Lincoln, too.”

He leans in, as she leans up, and it’s been three years, nearly four now, of kissing her—but no matter how familiar they’ve become with each other, it still always feels like a fairy tale. Like magic. The kind he never thought he’d find.

He noses her neck when she pulls away, pressing her laugh against his jaw. “I have a ring,” he says, and pulls it from his pocket. She lights up instantly, and it’s everything he thought it’d be. She swipes at her eyes with the backs of her knuckles, and Bellamy grabs her hand when it falls, licking at the salt of her tears. Clarke sucks in a breath, and he can see when her eyes begin to darken.

He didn’t know what that meant, at first. She didn’t give the same signals that mermaids do, when they’re being satisfied. He’d just thought she was harder to please than he was.

But now he knows better, and he knows what it means when the black of her eyes starts to swallow the blue, when the tendons of her neck stand out stark enough for him to catch in his teeth. She trails her fingers down his stomach, to the button of his pants, and Bellamy swallows as she sinks to her knees on the tile floor.

She mouths at the skin of his hip, pulling at his jeans, and he can feel the flash of her teeth when she grins. “I think this calls for a celebration,” she says, and takes him between her lips.

This was new for him too, and the first time she did it, he nearly had a heart attack. He’s fairly sure this particular act is specifically human. Mermaids have far too many _teeth_ for it to work, he thinks.

Clarke swallows around him, tongue fluttering against his skin until he groans and lets his head fall back, hands gripping the counter behind him so hard he thinks the joints in his fingers might pop. She hums, clearly very pleased with herself, and Bellamy can’t even tease her about it.

He always manages to lose his words in this position, something which Clarke takes a certain amount of pride in. She likes when he speaks in his mother tongue, the language of the water. She can’t understand it—he’s tried to teach her the basics, but something about the pitch and cadence just doesn’t lend itself to human vocal cords.

Bellamy swears, in his language so he can feel Clarke shiver below him, which just spurs him on. He’s fairly useless in this state, legs already getting shaky as he can feel the pressure building, so he tries to give her what he can. And if that means a lot of cursing that she can’t understand, then so be it.

He wishes she could, though. He’d like to see her blush at the things he’s saying.

Finally she draws him in as deep as she can, and he snaps, bucking into her mouth without really meaning to, so she coughs and sputters around him. He’s apologizing already, but she doesn’t seem too upset about it, just grabs a tea towel from the oven handle, and wipes at her chin.

She tips her head back to grin at him, and lets Bellamy tug her up so he can kiss her the way he likes, deep and wet until she’s clawing at him.

They only pull apart when the fire alarm starts to go off, just over the ruined sauce. Clarke laughs, rushing to open the window, fanning at the smoke with her towel as Bellamy pours the sauce down the drain and leaves the charred pot to soak in the sink.

“Pizza?” she shouts, over the sound of shrill beeping, and Bellamy heads for the phone, only a little distracted by the way the ring looks on her finger as it catches the setting sun.

 

As it happens, once they’re engaged, neither of them seem to be at all interested in waiting.

He would have, of course, if Clarke wanted to, but she’s somehow more excited about the wedding than he is, which frankly Bellamy hadn’t thought could be possible. Well, maybe not about the wedding, since he’s still not entirely convinced that part is altogether necessary. But the being married part—yeah, he’s ready for that. He’s been watching all the documentaries, keeping a list of notes on the bright yellow legal pad he had O pick him up from the store.

Clarke finds him like that, on the couch in his pajamas and the reading glasses she forced him to buy, copying down the information he’s getting from that day’s film.

She squints at the screen for a moment. “Is this _27 Dresses_?”

“It is,” Bellamy says, not looking away from his list. This one has been particularly informative. “How many maidens would you like on your side?” he asks, glancing over.

Clarke just grins, shaking her head at him with so much fondness it makes his heart ache.

It’s been nearly four years, and he knows she loves him, he does, but—he can’t help the overwhelming anxiety that wells up in him sometimes, at the thought of her never needing him as much as he needs her.

Clarke is his anchor, his everything, really. With her, he’s a fiancé, a soon-to-be husband and maybe one day father, son-in-law to her parents. Without her, he’s nothing but a landlocked mermaid, a part-time librarian who lives in the loft above his little sister’s boyfriend’s loft.

With her, his life on land means something. It’s fate.

She moves around the couch to peck him on the mouth, casual, before tucking herself into his side. “Only because I like the _Benny and the Jets_ scene,” she says, turning up the volume, and Bellamy forgets all about his study within seconds.

The wedding itself goes relatively well, Bellamy thinks. Certainly better than any of the ones in his documentaries. Nobody gets into a fist fight, and the cake remains perfectly intact, until they first slice into it.

They’re married on the beach, with bare feet on the sand and sea breeze in their hair, and when they dance under the reception tent, Bellamy ducks his nose against her neck to breathe the salt on her skin. She always smells like sunlight, like the surface of the water, and he’s never really been sure how to describe it to her. How _much_ she is. She feels like endless possibilities. Everything about her feels endless.

“Are you happy?” he asks, when the party has died down and nearly everyone has left for their hotel or their homes, if they’re local. Only a few of Clarke’s estranged aunts are left, with Raven, Octavia, Lincoln and Wells off to the side, in some attempt to give them privacy.

Clarke turns until she’s practically in his lap, which might not be the best position, with the dress she’s wearing, but he’s not about to _stop_ her.

“I’m always happy with you,” she says, and it shouldn’t be so easy for her to wreck him, not with such simple words. “I’m going to be happy with you for the rest of my life,” she adds, and he kisses her, because he doesn’t know the proper words.

“I love you,” he says, but that’s still not quite right. They use different words, where he comes from. The closest translation would be _you consume me_ , but he thinks that might freak her out. Maybe _we consume each other_ would be clearer.

Octavia drops down into the seat beside him, apparently done with pretending not to see them making out at their own party. She kicks her bare, sand-coated feet up on the chair across from her, stretching so her legs will reach.

She lets her head drop against his shoulder, and he lets his fall down on hers. Clarke pecks him on the cheek and bounces off to goad Raven into dancing with her.

“Happy Wedding Day, big brother,” O says, and Bellamy laughs against her hair.

“I don’t think that’s a thing,” he says, fond. “But thank you.” He turns so he can see her profile, eyes shining in the fairy lights twined around the tent poles. She’s watching Lincoln try to teach Wells how to salsa, but neither of them are really very good. Raven’s barking orders from where she’s leaning most of her weight on Clarke, her leg not allowing them to do much more than sway back and forth in place.

“Hey, I got you something.” Octavia digs around in the pockets of her dress—because she flatly refuses to wear anything that doesn’t have at least one pocket, just on principle—and pulls out a pair of car keys.

“You got me a car?” he asks, a little amused but mostly bewildered. He doesn’t need a car, and honestly he has no idea where his sister found one she could give to him.

Octavia rolls her eyes dramatically. “No, Bell. Lincoln’s letting you borrow his truck, so you and Clarke can take off for the weekend and go camping.”

He supposes it makes sense, to go camping for vacation, since they already live on the beach. He knows a lot of locals like to frequent campgrounds near the Georgia border. Apparently there’s a very popular lake, filled with very enormous fish.

Bellamy isn’t really sure how a lake might be better than the entire ocean, but he doesn’t bother arguing. He’s never actually seen a lake, after all. Maybe there’s something he’s missing.

“I thought you weren’t getting me a wedding gift,” he teases, tugging at Octavia’s carefully braided hair even as she bats his hand away.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” she sniffs. “Lincoln, Raven and Wells did most of the work on this one.” She smacks an obnoxiously loud wet kiss to his cheek, just to annoy him, and runs off.

Clarke finds him soon after, and he can tell she’s starting to wilt a little from the non-stop excitement, so he bundles her up in his jacket and steers her towards the road.

“Apparently our friends are giving us a weekend camping trip,” he says, and she hums, nodding her head on his shoulder.

“That sounds nice,” she sighs, and he can hear the grin in her voice, even if it’s too dark to actually see it. Her hair’s fallen out of its fancy up-do throughout the day, so now it hangs in uneven tendrils that tickle his neck when she moves. “I can think of worst ways to spend two days, than lone with you in the mountains.”

Bellamy grins, tugging her impossibly closer. He never wants to let go.

She reaches up to tangle their fingers together, where his arm is draped over her shoulders. He can feel their rings rub against each other, and the tiny sound of metal-on-metal. He could get used to everything about this marriage.

He could get used to everything about this life.

“Yeah,” he agrees, breathing in the mix of night chill and ocean air. “There are worse things.”


End file.
